Chapter 13: Keys on the Cloth

"Why are you still at my table?" Harlan said.

Floyd took his hands off the cloth.

He reached into his pocket and set a ring of keys beside his water glass.

"Those are the company truck," Floyd said. "The office is on there too, and the gate."

"I know what they are."

"I'm not taking the company with me. I'm taking my wife and my son."

Harlan looked at the keys and did not touch them.

"You've never had a thing that didn't have my name on it," he said.

"I know, sir. That's why I'm still here. I wanted you to watch me set it down."

Floyd's brother made a noise in his throat and then covered it with his hand.

Marlene had both palms flat on the cloth, and she did not take her eyes off her son.

Harlan turned his face to the window.

"Well," he said. "Go on, then."

It was not an apology. It was not even an answer.

I stood up with Eli on my shoulder, and Floyd stood with me.

My aunt went first, down the porch steps, and she did not hold the screen door.

In the yard she stopped by her white pickup and looked Floyd up and down.

"You came in that company truck," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then you've got no ride."

"I can call someone to come get me."

"Nobody's coming for you at nine at night." She opened her driver's door. "Get in the bed."

Floyd looked at the truck bed. He looked at me.

"I'd do it," I said.

He climbed in over the tailgate in his pearl-snap shirt and sat with his knees pulled up and his back against the cab.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Husband's DNA Test Said Our Baby Wasn't His from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.